Sounds like you are pretty familiar with the school. You know we have a 13,000 seat basketball arena that is largest in the MAC that is Big East ready to go along with an up and coming football program.
I would say interest in joining the Big East is about 50/50 among Ohio fans there are some strong points either way toward joining the Big East.
Points in favor:
1.Geography- Ohio is 2 hours from Cincinnati and WVU. Three or four hours from Louisville and Pittsburgh. Traditionally, most of Ohio's out of state students are from the East Coast, so we have alumni bases in NJ and NYC that would like to see the Bobcats play. We had about 1,000 show up in CT when we played UConn in their old stadium.
2.Academics- Many Bobcat fans think because we are a state flagship school that we deserve better than playing mostly regional schools in the MAC. WVU, UConn, and Rutgers are state flagship schools. UC, Pitt, UL, USF are major urban schools, much bigger than MAC counterparts Toledo, Akron, and Buffalo.
Points against:
1.Budget- Most Big East schools have a 35 to 40 million dollar budget. On the low end is UC and USF with about 25 million dollar budgets. Ohio's budget is only 15 million......joining the Big East would add about 5 million dollars worth of revenue bringing it to 20 million. The AD director at Ohio is working diligently to increase our athletic budget to the top in the MAC. Miami Ohio currently has the largest budget in the MAC at 19 million. Ohio is a growing school that doesn't spend as much as it could on athletics.
2.Comparative advantage- In MAC basketball, Ohio has the largest following and a strong presence in Cleveland where the MAC tourney is played. Ohio won the MAC tourney in 2005 as a 5 seed, the lowest seed ever........having a strong crowd in Cleveland helps. We've had Kentucky play in our arena before, and we've beaten Syracuse, UConn, UNC, UVa, WVU in the last 10 years. Much better than the average mid major. We are trying to replicate this advantage we have in the MAC by upgrading our football facilities to best in the conference. The problem with joining the Big East is we wouldn't have an advantage over anyone in our conference in support or facilities and we might be a bottom level team.
3.Potential- Ohio is only 60 miles from Columbus, the hometown of Ohio State. Columbus is right in the middle of the state so its fanbase covers a wide radius, and they have considerable tradition giving them the best players in the state. The situation is a lot different than with VT in the Big East where they were the biggest football school in that state. Ohio is basically in Ohio State country and a portion of the town pulls for Ohio State. It will be difficult for Ohio to draw the big 40,000 plus type numbers for football unless WVU or Louisville are in town because we are in a small college town too close to Ohio State. We only average 20k right now in the MAC, but we are one of the worst teams in the conference.....I think if we could build a winning tradition we could get things over the 25k mark like Marshall has been able to do but 50-60k forget it. Our season ticketbase is still under 10,000......tough to grow quickly like in Louisville when you are not in a major urban area.
Overall, I'm against going to the Big East because in the MAC we can be a top dog in football and basketball easily. Ohio doesn't have the economic base or statewide athletic appeal on the level that today's BCS conferences are looking for. There are schools in BCS conferences out there like Ohio (e.g. Washington State, Oklahoma State) with smaller support levels that have been grandfathered into the BCS but if you look at how these schools perform, they usually struggle over the long haul and rarely make a January bowl. They are just as well off to be playing in a non-BCS conference.
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